Split Second - [17]

‘Once we’ve apprehended the suspects, we might have more information.’

‘Was it a racist attack?’

‘That’s one avenue we are exploring. I understand it must be very frustrating for you both,’ Martine said.

‘It doesn’t matter why,’ Val said. ‘There probably isn’t any good reason. But they’ll pay for it.’ Her lips trembled.

Andrew’s anger drained away. He sat back down. Val took his hand. As Martine talked about the investigation and how it was going, Andrew was back in the garden, his feet cold and wet on the snow, seeing the lurid stain against the white, the ruin of Luke Murray’s face, watching Jason screaming for him to call the ambulance, seeing the smallest boy flailing and then running to the gate, his accomplices, their faces contorted as they screamed. He felt his throat spasm, mouth water, then a convulsion in his abdomen. He made it to the downstairs toilet and puked until he was spent. He gazed bleary-eyed at the face in the mirror, wiped the string of drool from his chin, his fingers white and bloodless. There was something odd; he stared, puzzled over it, then realized that he hadn’t shaved, his face was shadowed with thick stubble.

Someone came to find him eventually, someone always came after him even though he wanted to be left alone.

Their house was pictured on the news again, police tape fluttering in the slight breeze, which snatched the lightest dusting of snow and blew it round in a fine spiral. Outside their fence, bouquets of flowers and cards and candles. The photograph of Jason, and then two images of Luke Murray. The second one showing his horrific injuries. Val murmured in shock and Andrew groaned. The bare facts of the case were narrated, then the man leading the inquiry appealed for information.

When the next item came on, Val muted the sound. Turned to Martine. ‘When can we go home?’

‘I’d suggest leaving it for a few more days,’ Martine said. ‘You’d be likely to be besieged by the press if you went back now.’

‘But you can’t stop us?’ There was grit in her tone.

‘Maybe we’re better here,’ Andrew ventured.

Val turned to him. ‘I want to be closer to Jason. I want to be where he was.’

He swallowed.

‘Let me check how things stand.’ Martine got up. ‘I’ll make a call.’

Andrew reached out a hand, covered Val’s. It was the best he could offer by way of support, but the prospect of returning home filled him with cold dread.

‘I need some air,’ he said to Val later. ‘I need to get out.’

‘Want company?’

Oh God. His heart contracted; he felt a pulse quicken in the roof of his mouth. He hesitated. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he felt trapped.

She understood. She let him go.

Andrew walked towards town, avoiding the centre of the pavement where the snow had been compacted to treacherous ice, stepping instead on the edges, on the untouched white. The snow creaking underfoot.

He could see his breath, milky smoke.

Dragon’s breath! Jason chortling, six years old and his head full of dinosaurs and pirates.

The sun was hidden; clouds mottled pearly grey blanketed the sky. The bushes, each twig and leaf, were laced with frost. He walked north towards Withington. On the eighteenth-century maps, this was a toll road from Manchester to Oxford; Withington was where one of the turnpikes had been, a village surrounded by farmland before it had grown and fused with others to form the city. The route south was dotted with coaching inns every few miles, forerunners of the railway stations. He glimpsed a snowman on a side road, squat and plain, eyes but no other features, no hat or scarf. He passed the milestone outside the fire station: 4 miles to Manchester, to Centre of Saint Ann’s on one face, 8 ¼ miles to Wilmslow on the other.

He walked on; let his eyes roam over the buildings, shops and houses, apartment blocks. All this now charted in the A-Z, captured on Google Earth, in aerial or street view. He and Jason had looked up their house when they first downloaded the software; they had worked out when the photograph must have been taken, because it showed the old greenhouse, which had been wrecked by spring storms and had been taken down by Andrew shortly after and replaced with a polytunnel.

He reached Rusholme. The streets were chock-a-block here, the shops and Indian restaurants brightly lit and buzzing with people even though it was daytime. The traffic was loud, buses lumbering along the bus lane and taxis and cars snarled up in the narrow road. Someone sounded a horn repeatedly. People were shouting to each other, walking too close to Andrew; they were staring at him. A fine sweat broke out over the whole of his body and his heart hammered painfully.

He took the first turning right, away from the main thoroughfare. Soon he was on quiet streets, halls of residence empty for the holidays. Had anyone told Durham about Jason? Val would know; she was keeping a list, an A4 pad to help them stay on track. On track to where? Destination unknown. How could they know the right route? No one else had made this journey, not this exact same journey. Even if others had lost a child, they hadn’t lost Jason. Andrew didn’t want to be forced along any particular path. He wanted to wander in the wilderness. Yes, like some deranged prophet, grow a beard and rent his clothes and live on honey and locusts. Hah! The image, the pathetic self-pity, made him bark a laugh, and a woman across the street looked over in alarm.